Bangladesh on manhunt for 260 missing since 2015

Five young men killed 22 people, most of them foreigners, in an attack on an upmarket Dhaka cafe on July 1 claimed by IS. 

Three of the attackers were from affluent Dhaka homes who had broken off contact with their families months ago. Authorities have blamed the attack on a domestic militant group, but security experts say the scale and sophistication of the assault suggested links to a trans-national network. 

In the days after the attack, the government appealed to families to contact authorities if their sons had disappeared. 

A senior officer with the police-led Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which is involved in the counter-terrorism effort, said a list of 260 missing young men had been compiled from reports and tip-offs. 

“Some youngsters are sons of retired or serving army officials, bureaucrats and businessmen,” Mufti Mahmud Khan, chief of the RAB’s legal and media wing chief, said. He said data was still being gathered and the number of missing was expected to grow. On the list, which the RAB posted on its Facebook page, was a 16-year-old, a doctor whose father was in the army and a man who was arrested in 2013 with explosives but who went to Malaysia while on bail. 

Mostly Muslim Bangladesh has faced a series of attacks on liberal bloggers, university teachers and members of religious minorities over the past year.